The Most Decorated Woman in Competitive Barbecue

Melissa Cookston is partial to the Memphis-style flavors she recalls from her childhood

Melissa Cookston recalls the smell of barbecue mingling with her grandfather’s morning coffee as she sat and talked with him at his favorite lunch spot in the Mississippi Delta. The women at the shop would begin cooking for the lunch crowd early in the morning. If Ms. Cookston and her grandfather stayed long enough they would let breakfast turn into lunch.

“That is probably the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten,” says Ms. Cookston, who knows a thing or two about the cuisine. “I don’t know if it was the barbecue or the company.”...